The Walk to Emmaus is a spiritual renewal program

1. The Walk to Emmaus is a spiritual renewal program intended to strengthen the local church through the development of Christian disciples and leaders.

2. Are you currently serving in a leadership role or a support position in your home church?

3. The Walk to Emmaus experience begins with a 72-hour short course in Christianity, comprised of fifteen talks by lay and clergy on the themes of God's grace, disciplines of Christian discipleship, and what it means to be the church.

4. Do you sense the Holy Spirit nudging you to a new level of participation in your home church?

5. The course is wrapped in prayer and meditation, special times of worship and daily celebration of Holy Communion.

6. The "Emmaus community," made up of those who have attended an Emmaus weekend, support the 72-hour experience with a prayer vigil.

7. During and after the three days, Emmaus leaders encourage pilgrims to meet regularly in reunion groups. The members of the reunion groups challenge and support one another in faithful living.

8. Are you currently meeting with a reunion group? If not, have you considered joining one or even starting a new one? You can start with as few as two or three.

9. Pilgrims seek to Christianize their environments of family, job, and community through the ministry of their congregations. 

10. Although connected through The Upper Room to The United Methodist Church, The Walk to Emmaus is ecumenical. (representing the whole of a body of churches ) The program invites and involves the participation of Christians of many denominations.

11. The Walk to Emmaus is designed to communicate with confidence and depth the essentials of the Christian life, while accentuating those features that Christians have traditionally held in common.

12. The Walk to Emmaus is a tightly designed event that is conducted with discipline according to a manual that is universally standard.

13. Each community is administered locally through its local Board of Directors. The program is administered globally through the International Emmaus office in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

14. Emmaus of Southeast Michigan Find your Board of Directors as well as much more information about your community at emsem.org

15. The Walk to Emmaus® gets its name from the story in Luke 24:13-35, which provides the central image for the three-day experience and follow-up.

16. Luke tells the story of that first Easter afternoon when the risen Christ appeared to the two disciples who were walking together along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

17. Like Christians and churches who are blinded by preoccupation with their own immediate difficulties, these two disciples' sadness and hopelessness seemed to prevent them from seeing God's redemptive purpose in things that had happened.

18. And yet, the risen Christ “ came near and went with them," opening the disciples' eyes to his presence and lighting the fire of God's love in their hearts. 

19. The Walk to Emmaus offers today's disciples a parallel opportunity to rediscover Christ's presence in their lives, to gain fresh understanding of God's transforming grace, and to form friendships that foster faith and support spiritual maturity.

20. A sponsor is a person who has been through an Emmaus experience and is willing to share that experience with another new Emmaus pilgrim.

21. Find Sponsor applications at emsem.org

22. The sponsor frees the pilgrim participant from any personal responsibilities that might distract him or her while on the experience.

23. Sponsorship also undergirds each pilgrims 72-hour experience with prayer and other expressions of God's love.

24. Sign up for the 72 hour prayer vigil at emsem.org

25. According to the dictionary, a sponsor is one who takes responsibility for another. The suffix "-ship" refers to the skill involved in the activity. So sponsorship is the skill of taking responsibility for another.

26. The aim of a sponsor should not be "to get all my friends to go," to “fill up the weekend”, to “fix people's problems”, or to “reproduce one's own religious experience” in others.

27. The aim of sponsorship is to build up the body of Christ.

28. Pray for the pilgrims openness to God's call to discipleship.

29. Make an appointment with the pilgrim(or pilgrim couple) to discuss his or her participationin Emmaus.

30. Pilgrim applications are available at emsem.org

31. Invite the pilgrim to take part in Emmaus for the sake of a more vital relationship with Jesus Christ. The sponsor shares his or her faith, explains the basic purpose, elements, and follow-up dimensions of the Walk.

32. Ask the pilgrim to make a commitment by filling out a registration form. If the participant is married, the sponsor will speak with both partners and encourage an equal commitment by both spouses.

33. The sponsor will also support the pilgrims family by house-sitting, baby-sitting, watering plants, picking up mail, feeding pets, or just checking in with a spouse to see if any help or support is needed.

34. Encourage the pilgrim in his/her continued journey and take the pilgrim to Emmaus "gatherings" after the Walk weekend is over.

35. Help the pilgrim re-enterhis or her churchand consider ways to act out new commitment and enthusiasm.

36. Help the pilgrim sponsorothers.

37. As pilgrims conclude their Walk to Emmaus weekends, they are introduced to the concept of the Fourth Day -- a symbol of the days of Christian pilgrimage that follow the three-day Emmaus experience. 

38. "the whole reason for The Walk to Emmaus is to make you a more faithful disciple and active member in your church." 

39. An important and necessary foundation for faithful Christian living is a vital connection to the Christian community for support, guidance, and challenge.

40. The Emmaus group reunion is a small accountability group of two to six persons who have usually(not always) participated in the three-day Walk to Emmaus and who want to continue their pursuit of a life lived wholly in the grace of God.

41.  With the regular support of a few faithful friends, the gift of God's love in Jesus Christ becomes a lifestyle of Christian discipleship through the threefold discipline of piety, study, and action.

42. The Fourth Day meeting (Reunion Group) consists of persons' sharing the stories of their walk with Christ during the past week.

43. Reunion group members listen to one another, celebrate the grace of God in each person's life, and reinforce each one's core commitment to living in union with Christ in all facets of daily life.

44. Reunion group members express that reinforcement through gentle accountability, encouragement, and support of one's stated discipline and plans.

45. A mature Christian is an informed Christian -- informed about the mind and heart of God by knowing scripture.

46. Study, like piety, can be approached in an intentional, systematic way, resulting in a deepening of your relationship with God and an empowering of your Christian discipleship.

47. Reunion groups provide a natural launching pad for missionin the community.

48. Shared engagement in service to others deepens friendships and opens up avenues for Christian action.

49. Some local Emmaus communities take on ministries in their communities as an act of agape.

50. Do you remember how much your Walk to Emmaus meant to you?